Outside Reading Name _________________________

Most Common AP Literature Period _________ Date __________

For the first quarter outside reading, you will be reading one of the most commonly
referenced works on the AP Lit test. You will form groups of five people to work together.
As a group, choose an author and novel, and give the names of both group members and
book to your teacher. You may not choose a book any member of your group has read
before, and each group must choose a different book.

Then, divide the book into 5 sections. The due dates for each section will correspond to the
days that we will have literature circle discussions in class. All members of the group must
complete the reading by the assigned date!

On discussion day, each person should bring to class a paper with notes about the text,
talking points and questions to ask the group which will facilitate a meaningful discussion.
Your literature circle preparation will be turned in and, along with my observations, will
serve as an evaluation of your ability to come to discussions prepared, having read and
researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence
from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned
exchange of ideas. Finally, at the conclusion of each literature circle, you will be asked to
respond to a prompt about the section of reading your group discussed.

DATE DUE PAGES ROLE

Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 3:

Week 4:

Week 5:

The class following your Week 5 work together, you will choose one of the release questions
to answer as your assessment. Your response will be written independently. It will be scored
using an AP rubric from the College Board, and count as a graded assignment.
Most Frequently Referenced Books on the AP Lit and Comp Exam 1970-2014
26 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
20 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
18 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
17 King Lear by William Shakespeare
16 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor
Dostoevski
16 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
16 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
15 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
15 Moby Dick by Herman Melville
14 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
13 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel
Hawthorne
13 Their Eyes Were Watching God by
Zora Neale Hurston
12 The Awakening by Kate Chopin
12 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
11 Billy Budd by Herman Melville
11 Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
11 Light in August by William Faulkner
10 Antigone by Sophocles
10 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
10 Beloved by Toni Morrison
10 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
10 The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee
Williams
10 Native Son by Richard Wright
10 Othello by William Shakespeare
10 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
10 A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee
Williams
9 Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
9 A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
9 A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine
Hansberry
8 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac
McCarthy
8 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
8 Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
8 Candide by Voltaire
8 The Crucible by Arthur Miller
8 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
8 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
8 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
8 Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
8 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
8 Sula by Toni Morrison
8 Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
7 All the Kings Men by Robert Penn
Warren
7 Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan
Paton
7 Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
7 Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
7 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
7 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas
Hardy
7 Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
7 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
7 The Sound and the Fury by William
Faulkner
7 The Sun Also Rises by Ernest
Hemingway
7 The Tempest by William Shakespeare
7 Tess of the DUrbervilles by Thomas
Hardy
7 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
6 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
6 A Dolls House by Henrik Ibsen
6 An Enemy of the People by Henrik
Ibsen
6 Equus by Peter Shaffer
6 Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift
6 Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
6 Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw
6 Medea by Euripides
6 The Merchant of Venice by William
Shakespeare
6 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
6 Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
6 Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot
6 Obasan by Joy Kogawa
6 The Piano Lesson by August Wilson
6 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
6 Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by
Edward Albee
5 Bleak House by Charles Dickens
5 The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
5 Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
5 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
5 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James
Baldwin
5 Hamlet by William Shakespeare
5 Macbeth by William Shakespeare
5 Mrs. Warrens Profession by George
Bernard Shaw
5 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
5 A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
5 Wise Blood by Flannery OConnor

Shakespeare - All Plays Total = 80 2 Anthony and Cleopatra 4 As You Like It 5 Hamlet 3
Henry IV, Parts I and II 1 Henry V 4 Julius Caesar 17 King Lear 5 Macbeth 6 Merchant of
Venice 2 A Midsummer Night's Dream 2 Much Ado About Nothing 9 Othello 1 Richard III 4
Romeo and Juliet 7 The Tempest 4 Twelfth Night 4 Winter's Tale

Classical Greek & Roman Literature = 30 1 The Aeneid by Virgil 10 Antigone by Sophocles 1
The Eumenides by Aeschylus 1 The Iliad by Homer 1 Lysistrata by Aristophanes 6 Medea by
Euripides 3 The Odyssey by Homer 6 Oedipus Rex by Sophocles 1 The Orestia by Aeschylus

Additionally, you may choose ANY book that has appeared on the AP lit test in the past. See
the website http://mseffie.com/AP/APtitles.html for 10 pages of choices.